Dreaming of a baseball Dream Team: What the USA roster might look like for the 2028 L.A. Olympics

Who remembers when the greatest collection of basketball talent ever assembled on one roster took the court for the first time at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona?

“Yeah,” Kyle Schwarber said, “I was too young for that.”

Too polite, also, to acknowledge that he wasn’t born yet. But never mind that the Phillies slugger didn’t come along until March 1993. Everyone’s heard about when Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird headlined a group of NBA stars that flexed U.S. basketball might on the world stage.

The story of the “Dream Team” transcends generations.

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Thirty-four years later, USA Baseball has put together its version to compete in the triennial World Baseball Classic and avenge a 3-2 loss to Japan in 2023 on Shohei Ohtani’s championship-clinching strikeout of Mike Trout.

A few names on the team of U.S. manager Mark DeRosa’s dreams:

Aaron Judge. Paul Skenes. Cal Raleigh. Tarik Skubal. Bryce Harper. Bobby Witt Jr. And, yes, Schwarber.

“It’s a great team,” Schwarber said on Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball podcast. ”Another stacked lineup. The lineup that we had out there in ’23 was full of studs, MVPs, All-Stars, everything. This lineup, All-Stars, MVPs, and the cool thing is there’s a little bit more youth on it, too.

“You’re starting to see some of these younger faces that could really have those chances to be future MVPs. Those future perennial All-Stars are going to be on this team, as well. I’m just excited about it.”

It makes you dream, doesn’t it? And not just about whether the most talented American baseball team ever assembled can win the WBC for the first time since 2017.

No, dream bigger. Dream of 2028, the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where baseball will return as a medal sport for the first time since 2020. And dream of a best-on-best international tournament made possible if MLB chooses to pause the season, just as the NHL did in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, and again for 11 riveting days last month in Milan.

“We have the WBC, but it’s not the same,” said Harper, who has lobbied MLB for years to make concessions for the Olympics. “People can say as much as they want, but the Olympics is so worldwide. The WBC is great and brings a lot of people together, but the Olympics is something you dream about playing in.”

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Indeed, although the WBC generates interest, there are limits to how seriously it can be taken given its timing on the sport’s calendar. It’s still spring training, after all, and for years, many of the best pitchers — American pitchers, in particular — declined a WBC invitation to focus on building arm strength for the season.

DeRosa, USA Baseball’s “Uncle Sam,” said there was more buy-in for his “I Want You” recruitment this time around, and not only from Skenes, the NL Cy Young Award winner who pitched in college at Air Force and is unlikely to start meaningful games down the stretch for the perennially noncontending Pirates.

“I just think it was the fear of missing out,” DeRosa said at baseball’s winter meetings in December. “I think guys watched in ’23 and saw the game against Japan, the iconic moment between Trout and Ohtani, Trea Turner’s [grand slam] against Venezuela.

“These are moments in time. It’s like, you’re going to miss out on three weeks of the greatest time of your life as a professional if you never win a World Series. That’s what this is.

“You see the way Latin America and Japan is. I just feel like there’s been a groundswell with the United States player that, all right, it’s time for us to go.”

Sure, but the WBC lets players go only so far. Pitchers are capped at 65 pitches in the preliminary round, 80 in the quarterfinals, and 95 in the semis and final.

WBC managers also organized their pitching rotations in consultation with major league teams. Webb started Team USA’s opener Friday night against Brazil because the Giants need their ace to line up for opening day. Skubal will pitch only once. If the U.S. gets to the final, Mets rookie Nolan McLean will likely start, not Skubal or Skenes.

Most of the restrictions and guardrails could be lifted for the 2028 Olympics, which are scheduled from July 14 to 30. Injuries are unavoidable no matter the time of year. But pitchers will be fully built up, so workloads won’t need to be massaged.

Harper was among the first players to commit to Team USA in 2023 but withdrew after Tommy John elbow surgery. He signed on for this year’s tournament in December and said he was excited to play for the country for the first time since he was 18 — 15 years ago.

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Yet it feels like only the appetizer before the main course if major leaguers are allowed to play in the Olympics.

“I think that would be awesome,” Schwarber said. “We all grew up watching the Olympics and watching sports that you never thought that you’d watch.

“I feel like it would be such a great thing for our game just to have major leaguers there who are performing at the highest level to represent their countries. It would be amazing to have that, not just on the WBC size but on the world size.”

And then the U.S. could field a baseball Dream Team.

But a lot can change in two years. Using the WBC roster as a base, and organizing players into tiers (with their 2028 age in parentheses), let’s examine who might get to wear “U-S-A” across their chest when L.A.’s Olympic flame is lit.

After skipping the WBC in 2023, the captain of the Yankees agreed to be Captain America. But Judge’s commitment didn’t signify as much as Skenes’.

“Every other country, their best arms show up,” DeRosa said. “For whatever reason, in the United States, our best arms don’t show up. We’re trying to change that narrative. [Skenes] has certainly changed it.”

DeRosa often refers to Judge and Skenes as Team USA’s hitting and pitching “pillars.” They’re set in stone.

Turner smashed five homers, including a grand slam, in six WBC games in 2023. This time, the Phillies shortstop said he didn’t even get a call from DeRosa, who went younger at shortstop.

Tough business.

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A new wave of talent will wash ashore by the summer of 2028. But Witt, Henderson, Anthony, and Crow-Armstrong will still be under 30 and difficult to supplant. Ditto for Carroll, who dropped out of the WBC after breaking a bone in his hand.

At 35, Harper would be an elder statesman. But unless he gets injured or his production drops off a cliff, his face-of-the-sport star power gets him a place on the roster.

Schwarber’s presence in the middle of Team USA’s loaded order is undeniable. But here’s a word on his influence within the clubhouse:

“He’s the chemistry guy for me,” DeRosa said. “He was the guy. He’s in the dugout going, ‘Everyone relax. Do what you do.’ Even to me, he’s coming up, rubbing my shoulders, just like, ‘I got you.’ There’s just no panic with this guy. … He’s an infectious personality, and everyone loves him. And he backs it up.”

Bregman brings a similar vibe as a leader and a winner.

Others whose roster spot will be challenged by younger players: Will Smith, C, Dodgers (33); Byron Buxton, CF, Twins (34); Brice Turang, 2B, Brewers (28); Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, Yankees (40); Logan Webb, SP, Giants (31); Joe Ryan, SP, Twins (33); David Bednar, RP, Yankees (33).

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Imagine if Team USA had Crochet and Brown in the rotation behind Skenes and Skubal. Or if Greene or Tucker were in left field. And how the heck is Betts not on the WBC roster? Wheeler said he considered playing before getting injured last season. Maybe he or Cole could fill Clayton Kershaw’s role on the staff in 2028.

This is only a partial list of stars who won’t compete in the WBC. And the omissions serve only to amplify the pool of talent that Team USA has at its disposal.

Another partial list. Another trove of talent that will elbow its way into the conversation in two years, assuming that the door to the Olympics is opened to major leaguers.

“To be able to say that you’re an Olympian, that would be a really cool thing, a bucket-list item that you could cross off,” Schwarber said. “I guarantee you’d have a really big pool of players that would want to sign up and put their name in a hat to represent their country.”